Indian students and the Trump card

June 12, 2018

On 6 June 2018, at an event to mark the annual Student Visa Day of the U.S Embassy in India, Deputy Chief of Mission, Mary Kay L Carlson said, “There are no changes in the H-1B programme and nothing new on the H-4 visa policy”.

H-1 B visa has been the most popular long-term work visa in the United States for years. While many other working visas require the beneficiary to have a managerial position, a master’s degree, or an investment of thousands of dollars, the H-1B simply requires the following:

A bachelor’s degree

A job offer from a U.S. company for a speciality position that requires your bachelor’s degree

International students can stay and work in the US, for a total of 12 months and STEM graduates (STEM is an acronym referring to degrees in fields related to science, technology, engineering, and math) can stay up to 29 months after completing their degree. Trump’s battle is majorly targeting unskilled temporary foreign workers, imported from abroad, for the explicit purpose of substituting American workers at lower pay. It does not target international students who need to obtain F1 visa which also allows them to work on campus. Also 75.6% of 365,682 H1B visas that were approved in 2017 went to Indians.

Despite the media rhetoric against Trump, according to Open Doors Report on International Education Exchange, for the academic year 2017-2018, 186,000 Indian students had gone to the US.

Numerous factors influence a student’s decision to study overseas; this primarily includes, job opportunities, chances of acquiring post study work visa, cost of education and on – campus safety. Any of these reasons are good enough to influence your decision of choosing not to study in the US but not the Trump card.

One of South Asia’s leading career consultants with 15 years of experience in guiding students to the best-fit schools in India and overseas. A member of the National Association of Academic Counselling (NACAC) and International Association for College Admission Counselling (IACAC) in the US, and having visited over 300 schools all over the world since 2004 (of which 20 are dedicated to Art & Design), Ms Sondhi’s motto is to offer Indian students quality academic counsel that has global relevance.
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